Silver had never seen him wear anything but gray, and tonight was no exception. His pearl-gray trousers, darker gray frock coat, and silk waistcoat gave him a curiously phantomlike elegance in the nimbus of light cast by the lantern. “Good evening, Monteith.”
“You look charming, my dear,” Monteith said. “Perhaps I should offer you a position in my circus. I’m sure the gentlemen would flock to see you.” His voice lowered silkily. “And you appear to be so comfortable among us. May I ask if you intend to be here long this time?”
“Only a few days.” Silver glanced down at Etaine. “Khadil said it would be all right if I shared her tent and there are a few arrangements I wish to make before I leave.”
“Nonsense. When I heard you were here, I told Khadil to move in with one of the other freaks for the night and let you have exclusive use of her tent. A young lady must have her privacy.” His gaze flicked to Etaine and his smile glittered in the lantern light. “I believe I told you to go to bed,” he said softly. “You’re not usually so stupid, Etaine. I don’t wish to tell you again.” He snapped his fingers.
Two bright spots of color appeared in the child’s ivory cheeks and she scrambled quickly to her feet. “I’m going. Good night, Silver.” She ran toward the door, carefully avoiding brushing her father. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Monteith turned to watch her leave and then his gaze returned to Silver. “Children can be terribly disobedient, can’t they, Silver? I must remember to do something about that in the near future.”
Silver felt a ripple of fear. Monteith’s physical presence seemed to encompass and smother her. He was being far too polite and charming to her. Monteith maintained a pleasant facade only for his audiences and had never been hesitant about displaying his displeasure for both her presence at his circus and her association with Etaine. “You don’t seem unhappy to see me here. If I remember correctly, you weren’t this cordial the last time I saw you.”
“I can afford to be generous. We won’t be here much longer, so your interference with Etaine will cease to be a problem.”
“I help Etaine. Surely no one could call that a problem.”
“No?” His brow rose. “But then, we all have our own viewpoints.” He turned to leave. “And our individual purposes in life.”
“The reason I came back was to talk to you about Etaine.”
“Really? How interesting. Tomorrow we must make time for that conversation.” He glanced back over his shoulder, his dark blue eyes glittering coldly. “Sleep well, Silver.”
Silver gazed after him. Monteith’s presence always held a strange fascination for her. She supposed it was his resemblance to Etaine that bothered her so greatly. Being with him was like peering into a broken looking glass and seeing a beloved friend’s reflection twisted and fragmented. Etaine’s zest and warmth, her loving nature and joy in life were the precise opposites of her father’s traits. His cold beauty and mocking cruelty were repulsive, and the aura of power he emanated disturbed Silver even more.
She got up and blew out the lantern, then settled down on Khadil’s pallet and closed her eyes. She was so tired, and seeing Monteith had made her realize how many problems confronted her; Etaine, Monteith, her own plans for the future.
And the other possibility that she had been afraid even to think about.
She swallowed, fighting down the panic that persisted in rising within her. It was foolish to worry, when she would probably have her monthly flux any day. If not, then it meant she would have to see Nicholas only one last time. She would certainly not lie here sleepless, thinking about possibilities that might never come to pass. She would need all her strength and control tomorrow, when she would try to persuade Monteith to give up Etaine.
“Don’t move!” A hand clamped down over Silver’s mouth, smothering her outcry as she was jarred out of a sound sleep into half waking. “And if you sink your teeth into me, by God, I’ll gag you. I’m not at all pleased with you, Silver.”
Nicholas!
Even in the darkness she could never fail to recognize him. That musky scent, the deep vibrance of his voice … Joy cascaded through her in a blinding tide. Something lost was found. A bond that had been broken was now newly forged.
He was astride her, she could feel the iron-hard strength of his thighs through the layers of clothes that separated them. That was wrong, she thought hazily. There should be nothing separating them. Not time, nor distance, not even the flimsy barriers of fabrics.
“Silver?” There was a sudden note of concern in Nicholas’s voice. “Are you all right? Dammit, Monteith said you were only tired. I should have—”
“Monteith?” She was abruptly wide awake and began to struggle beneath Nicholas’s weight.
“That’s better,” Nicholas said dryly. “It’s not like you to be so meek. For a minute I was afraid you were ill. I was sure—Ouch!” He jerked his hand away from her teeth. “Get your fangs out of me. I told you I’d—”
“Let me go!” Silver said fiercely. “Not again, Nicholas!”
“Oh, yes,” Nicholas said softly. “Again and again and again. It may never stop. If you run away, I’ll only follow. Haven’t you realized that yet, Silver?”
The darkness of the tent was soft as ebony velvet and vibrant with the essence of Nicholas, reaching out, enfolding her. She could feel his heat, and her heart began to pound harder. “There is nothing to realize.”
“You think not?” Grimness threaded Nicholas’s voice. “Well then, I’ll have to convince you. But not here, you’re coming back to the Rose with me.”
“I’m not leaving here.”
“You will. I told Monteith I wanted no one sharing your tent because these people are your friends and I didn’t want to chance harming them.” His voice hardened. “But I have no intention of leaving without you, Silver. If you fight me, someone will no doubt hear and try to help you. Do you want to risk their being hurt?”
She stopped struggling. Nicholas’s tone was unrelenting, and she knew he meant every word he said. She drew a deep breath. “Monteith sent a message to you telling you I was here?”
“He was very well paid to do so. You’ll be happy to know you cost me a great deal of money. Monteith is an exceptionally greedy man.”
“He’s a complete bastard.”
“I surmised as much, but it made no difference as long as I could buy what I wanted from him.” The muscles of his thighs were hardening and his voice was thick. “And I want you. I believe it will be better if we leave here immediately. Mikhail is waiting outside the circus grounds with a hired carriage.” He moved off her, one hand encircling her wrist, and he pulled her to her feet. “Are you going to fight me?”
“No,” she said curtly. “Not here. There will be time enough to get away from you without involving my friends.”
“Excellent reasoning.” He pulled her toward the entrance of the tent. “And extremely convenient for me.”
“When did you arrive in St. Louis? I thought perhaps you would give up.”
He laughed softly. “No, you didn’t.”
He was right. She had known he would never give up something he wanted any more than she would have.
“I arrived here nearly a week ago.” He was leading her past the silent darkness of the tents. In the distance she could see the glow of a carriage lantern and Mikhail’s huge form on the coachman’s seat. “I remembered you said Monteith was no friend of yours, so I went directly to him and struck a bargain. Then all I had to do was wait.” His grip suddenly tightened with bruising force on her hand. “God, I could have strangled you for making me sit there and wonder what had happened to you. You could have been raped and thrown into the river and no one would have ever known.”
“I know you’d prefer to do any raping yourself.”
“I’ve never raped you,” Nicholas said tersely. “And we both know it. You wanted—my God, what are you wearing?”
They had come into the pool of light formed by the lan
tern on the carriage and Silver glanced down at the flame-colored costume. “It belongs to Fatima, who performs as one of the Caliph’s Dancing Daughters.” Silver forwned as she remembered something else. “I’m barefoot and now my feet are dusty. You could have given me time to put on my shoes.”
“Your feet aren’t the only thing that’s bare.” Nicholas’s gaze was on the silken flesh overflowing the low square neckline. “You don’t have much more on than you did when you wore that damn bed curtain. For God’s sake, what do I have to do to keep you decently covered?” He strode toward the carriage, dragging her along behind him. “This blasted heathen shamelessness has got to—”
“Hello, Silver.” Mikhail smiled down at her from the coachman’s seat of the carriage. “That is a pretty costume. We have been very worried about you. I told Nicholas you would not let anything happen to yourself, but he would not listen.”
Silver felt a sudden glowing warmth spread through her as she gazed up at his rough-hewn face. She had not realized until this moment how much she had missed the gentle Cossack. “There was nothing to worry about. It was a hard trip but—”
“Later,” Nicholas interrupted as he opened the door of the carriage. He lifted her and almost threw her on to the cushions of the seat. “Let’s get back to the Rose.” He climbed into the coach, slammed the door closed, and dropped into the seat opposite her. “You’re evidently glad to see Mikhail, at least.”
“I like him,” Silver said calmly. “And I don’t like you.”
He flinched. “No, liking has nothing to do with what we feel for each other. I have no use for so tame an emotion anyway.”
The moon emerged from behind the clouds and the darkness of the coach was flooded with a pale, pearly half-light. She wished fervently that it had remained dark. She did not want to see how the rays shimmered and frosted Nicholas’s golden hair to silver and played upon the supple muscles of his body. How they brought a soft luminence to his white linen shirt and outlined the brawny muscles of his thighs in dark tight-fitted trousers. She had a fleeting memory of how those thighs had felt holding her effortlessly in place while he moved wildly in and out until—No, she mustn’t remember. It was over.
She desperately pulled her glance away from him and looked out at the moonlit darkness beyond the window. “How is Valentin?”
“Almost as worried about you as I was.” Nicholas leaned back on the seat, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity she could feel even though she was no longer looking at him. “And much more inclined to be charitable. Do you know what I wanted to do with you after I found you?”
“You’ve already told me. You wanted to strangle me.”
“That was the last item on my list. The others were far more lewd in nature. I lay in that bed on the Rose and remembered what I’d done with you, and thought about what I still wanted to do.” He paused. “A hundred times I wanted to send for a woman but I never did. You seem to have worked some kind of spell over me. It’s not a confession that I make with pleasure.” His tone hardened. “I will be no woman’s puppet ever again.”
Again? It seemed impossible that Nicholas had ever yielded to any woman’s power, Silver thought with a strange wrenching pang. Who had—No, she would not wonder. “You should have sent for your whore, I wouldn’t have cared what you did.”
She felt the savage anger vibrate from him in the close confines of the carriage and experienced a sudden tingle of excitement. She heard him draw a deep breath as if struggling for control.
A few minutes passed and she could feel her nerves tighten and the tentative excitement grow. Why didn’t he speak?
“Perhaps you weren’t so selective,” he finally said silkily. “It was an impossibly hard trip for a woman. I’m sure there were men eager to help you for a … for compensation.”
For a moment she was tempted to lie to him, to tell him he was not the only man who could please her. It would anger him, it would cause that tension she felt in him to explode. The thought excited her. Then she realized what she was doing and was disgusted with herself. She would not lie. “I needed no help and took none.”
She could feel a little of the tension flow out of him as he relaxed. “That was very wise. I would have been quite incensed with you if you’d given your favors to any other man. So incensed I would probably have put you over my knee and spanked your bottom until you couldn’t sit down for a month.” He paused. “Afterward.”
Her gaze flew back to his face. “Afterward?” Her voice sounded strange, breathless. The excitement was blossoming, growing. Her breasts were lifting and falling with the shallowness of her breathing, her sensitive nipples rubbing against the soft velvet of her bodice.
“I’m not such a fool that I don’t realize what’s of first importance to both of us.” His voice was thick. “Just as you do. Do you think I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me? You wanted me angry enough to take you without your consent so that you could have your pleasure and still nurture your resentment.” He slowly shook his head. “No, Silver, you’re going to have to admit that you want me as much as I want you, that you can’t even wait until we get back to the Rose for me to take you, that you want me here and now.”
“Here?” She could feel her eyes widen and the color rise to her cheeks.
“Why not? We have a good forty-minute ride until we get to the levee, and I’ve done without you for almost two weeks. I have no intention of waiting any longer. Merde, I almost took you on the pallet in that damn circus tent.”
“I have no intention of giving you anything you want.”
“Because you’re angry with me for taking you away from your friends? But you won’t be giving me what I want, you’ll be taking what you want. Do you think I don’t know you by now?” He suddenly leaned forward and he began swiftly undoing the tiny covered buttons that closed the flame-colored velvet bodice.
“No, I …” But he had been too quick and the bodice was pushed aside to reveal the swollen fullness of her breasts. Then he was leaning back in his seat again, his gaze hot and intent upon her. “There. I’ve been watching those pretty breasts shake and quiver ever since Mikhail started the carriage moving. I thought at times you’d fall out of that little jacket, but unfortunately you never did.” Then, as she made a motion to close the jacket, he said sharply, “No, I’m not touching you, I’m only looking at you. We both know how much you like me to look at you.” He leaned forward and took her hands in both of his. “I like that costume, it appears to be a singularly convenient garment for our purpose. Tell me, do you have anything on underneath it?”
She didn’t answer him.
“No?” He smiled. “How delightful. I’ll have a dressmaker fashion several for you and you can wear them for me when I visit you at your house in St. Petersburg.”
“I’m not going to St. Petersburg.”
“Scarlet is a wonderful color for you,” he said, ignoring her reply. “Your nipples are just that color after I’ve sucked at them for a long time. Do you remember how long I did that the night before you ran away from me? I love your breasts. I love to look at them. I love to touch them. I love to watch them swell and ripen as you become excited.” His gaze never left her breasts. “As they’re doing now.”
She had no need for him to tell her this. She could feel herself blossom, tauten under his gaze. The slight jouncing of the carriage on the cobblestones sent a quiver through every muscle of her body and pulled at her heavy, sensitive breasts like a toying hand. Nicholas’s hand.
“Give me your foot.”
A ripple of surprise went through her. “Why?”
He reached into his pocket and drew out a pristine white handkerchief. “You accused me of getting your feet dusty. I thought I’d try to make amends.” His smile held an entrancing sweetness. “I thought it would please you to see me do so menial a task.”
She slowly lifted her leg and stretched out her left foot to rest on his knees. He enfolded it in the handkerchief and ran the soft fin
e linen over her sole. A little shiver went through her. He looked up. “Did I tickle you?”
“No, I’m not ticklish.”
“The other foot.” He began running the white cloth over her right foot. “You exaggerated. You’re not very dusty at all.” His gaze rose to her face as he ran the handkerchief over her sole with deliberate slowness. “And you may not be ticklish, but you’re extremely sensitive here. Many women are, you know.” He tossed the handkerchief carelessly on the seat beside him and, holding her ankle in one hand, he ran the tips of his fingers lightly from her heel to her instep. She experienced a tingling in her foot that spread up her leg. The muscles of her calf bunched and then hardened. “You see?”
She attempted to draw her foot away from him, but he would not release it. His grip tightened on her ankle. “You have lovely feet. Strong and well shaped.” His finger rubbed gently at the curve of her instep. Another shiver ran through her and she felt the muscles of her entire leg tauten. A familiar hot tingle ignited between her thighs.
She suddenly became aware how open and vulnerable was her position. The moonlit intimacy of the carriage, the nakedness of her breasts, Nicholas’s strong hand holding her ankle captive, and his fingers moving with teasing delicacy … He would stop and wait until the anticipation built and then would start again. His whisper-soft touch came gently, intimately, on her instep.
This time a shudder ran through every muscle of her body. Where had he learned this skillful, subtle manipulation of a woman’s body? A flash of resentment came and then was gone as his fingertips once more moved over her instep and the muscles of her stomach contracted as if on command. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Stop, Nicholas.”
He ceased immediately and set her foot on the seat beside him. “Certainly.” Then before she could draw her leg away, he was kneeling on the floor of the carriage before her between her thighs, pushing up the filmy scarlet skirt with one hand and gently shifting her other leg to the side with the other. “I think it’s time we went on to other pleasures anyway.” His head slowly lowered, his gaze on the soft darkness awaiting him. “And this is very pleasurable for you, remember? That night you screamed …”